Roger Corman changed my life. Today, remarkably, the famous
supplier of B-movies to the world’s youth market turns 90 (and I’m not feeling
so young myself). My relationship with Roger has been complicated, and I’m sure
the same holds true for most of his employees, past and present. As one of them
told me, “Just when you think he’s the shit of the world, he turns around and
does something of extraordinary niceness.” True -- yet his magnanimity can’t
always be trusted.
I met Roger Corman in 1973, when he interviewed me for a job
at New World Pictures. He had gotten my name
through the Phi Beta Kappa chapter of UCLA, where I was finishing up a
doctorate in English. It was typical of Roger to seek out someone with lofty
academic credentials: he loved to shore up his credibility by hiring underlings
with fancy degrees and titles.
On that first morning, I was impressed (as everyone always
was) by Corman’s handsome face, deep voice, and good-humored manner. We had a
serious talk about motion picture aesthetics, and he told me I’d need to
promise to read and discuss with him Siegfried Kracauer’s Theory of Film (1960). Of course I complied, wondering how this
ponderous tome would shed light on the making of monster movies and biker
flicks. I’m still wondering. He never mentioned Kracauer again.
After sixteen lively months as Corman’s all-purpose
assistant, I left New World in 1975 to return
to academia. Years later, I was persuaded by Roger to become the story editor
at his re-vamped company, Concorde-New Horizons. Signing on in 1986, I once
again plunged into the madcap world of low-budget filmmaking. My duties
included overseeing writers, consulting with young directors, and earning the
occasional script credit on horror films and thrillers that needed emergency fixes.
Yes, I played a few bit parts too, in all of which I kept my clothes on. But
one April afternoon in 1994, Corman called me into his office, where we had
another pivotal conversation.
Roger told me his fears for his company’s financial health.
(This was nothing new; he had these concerns every week or two.) Then he
brought up the plight of a close friend of mine. She had been an early Corman
employee and had taught me a great deal when I first arrived at New World. Later, she’d moved into more lucrative
positions with more prestigious companies. But she’d hit on hard times, and was
now desperate for work. It was a nice gesture on Roger’s part to make a place
for her on his staff. It was not so nice, however, to give her my job.
So after eight years of loyal service, I was rewarded with
two weeks’ notice. All the while Roger insisted that I had been an exemplary
employee. He told me to write myself a glowing recommendation (“Don’t be
modest,” he said), promised to sign it, and did. I later discovered that in
typically shrewd Corman fashion, he’d hired my old friend on a cut-rate basis.
Which meant that while lending a hand to someone in need, he was actually
saving the difference between her salary and my own. So his altruism (though
undoubtedly genuine) was also to his material benefit. Such is Roger Corman:
the buck stops with him, in more ways than one.
No, I don’t hold a grudge. My memories from my Corman years
are priceless. And writing Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers has
given me a career I never anticipated. So I’d say it’s been a fair trade.
Happy birthday, Roger!
